


Ups and downs; wrong or right, that's family

by Jade_Pearl



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily-centric (DCU), Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Cassandra Cain is Black Bat, Gen, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Pearl/pseuds/Jade_Pearl
Summary: I don't know how often this will update, but I'll try my best.This was inspired by two fics I read. One from Superman's POV about scary Batfamily in the Watchtower cafeteria and another about the Batfamily being mostly isolated from the League but someone hacks the zeta and accesses the batcave and finds out all their secret IDs.When/if I find these back I'll attach them. If any of you know them let me know plz.I'm still getting a feel of the characters so they might be a little awkward.I'm updating tabs as I go, there are relationships that I have planned but I've learnt my muse doesn't always cooperate. So, like my other WIPs this will as much as a ride for me as it will for you. Constructive criticism is appreciated.I think that's it for now. Hope you enjoy!
Comments: 4
Kudos: 136





	Ups and downs; wrong or right, that's family

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A colony of Bats](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547064) by [Chiaki_Hamano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiaki_Hamano/pseuds/Chiaki_Hamano). 
  * Inspired by [sneaking into the batcave seemed like a good idea until a bunch of bats glare at you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11632329) by [censored](https://archiveofourown.org/users/censored/pseuds/censored). 



> I don't know how often this will update, but I'll try my best. 
> 
> This was inspired by two fics I read. One from Superman's POV about scary Batfamily in the Watchtower cafeteria and another about the Batfamily being mostly isolated from the League but someone hacks the zeta and accesses the batcave and finds out all their secret IDs. 
> 
> When/if I find these back I'll attach them. If any of you know them let me know plz. 
> 
> I'm still getting a feel of the characters so they might be a little awkward.
> 
> I'm updating tabs as I go, there are relationships that I have planned but I've learnt my muse doesn't always cooperate. So, like my other WIPs this will as much as a ride for me as it will for you. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
> 
> I think that's it for now. Hope you enjoy!

The atmosphere in the Watchtower that day was excruciatingly tense. It was the first official meeting that the newest, junior Leaguers would be able to attend. Technically, it was only a meet-and-greet, but that didn't dim the joy and excitement in the juniors' eyes; if only they could relish in that excitement too. 

All senior Leaguers had been on edge for the last hour. They had all introduced their junior partners to their friends and it was approaching the time for 'official' introductions; everyone was on edge as they wondered if _he_ would show up. They had heard reports of a new Robin for the last two years, but they'd also heard reports of several new 'heroes' from _his_ city and no one knew what news was trustworthy out of Gotham. 

+=+=+

"I heard the new Robin's a chick."

"What? No way, it's a new Batgirl."

"I heard _he's_ actually taken in...a meta."

Whispers could be heard from all corners of the dining hall. All the juniors excitedly speculated about the new Bat. Truthfully, J'onn was just as curious, Batman was notorious for hating meta in his city, and claimed to be a normal man, yet he and his entire team were resistant to mind reading and magic. He'd never met a human capable of such things, much less an entire team and now there'd be more of them.

They were five minutes into the official ceremony, the founders, minus the Bat, were on stage ready to begin when the zeta tube came online. They had arrived. 

It chirped out the designation of each person to come through.

"Nightwing. B01." First out was Batman's first sidekick partner. He walked -strutted really- out the same way he did everything, with confidence and sex appeal by the bucketfuls. He could capture all the attention in a room with the smallest of gestures or looks, and he knew it. With a bright smile he waved at everyone and stepped to the side.

"Batgirl. B16." Batgirl had the gait of a warrior empress, or so Wonder Woman had said after meeting her for the first time. From what little the League had gathered she was the Bats' main tech support; more often than not seen on some device or the other. However, when the time came she earned her spot the same as anyone; those yellow heels were no hindrance or joke.

"Red Hood. B18." This one was almost as big an anomaly as the Bat himself. No one really knew where he came from, just that one day he was criminal killing other criminals and the next he was in the Tower alongside the Bat's brood. When Green Lantern Jordan had made to subdue him, he was met with Nightwing and Batgirl. They were casually standing in front of Hood, but everyone knew they could strike at any moment. 

Batman had given the entire room a long chilling look and said, "He's one of mine." And that had been that. None of the senior Leaguers trusted Red Hood, but he hadn't done anything worthy of dismissal and going against the Batman with no plausible reason was suicide.

"Red Robin. B20." The other techie of the Bat Family. This one was _never_ seen without a device on his person and in operation. He was constantly tinkering and fiddling with them. He appeared to have a smaller build than his predecessors and no one had really seen him in action. Once Wondergirl, now Troya, had seen him exit the training room; when she went to check she said that it was a slaughter. Robot parts were everywhere, and the score had surpassed half of the metas'. Although no one had witnessed it, everyone gave him just as wide a berth as the others.

"Robin. B30." The person that came through appeared to be male, as far as J'onn could tell. He had the standard Robin uniform, tailored to what was most likely his preference. Most notable was the katana strapped to his back. All the Robins had had a signature weapon, but he'd never seen a child wield a blade, and by the way he carried himself with it, J'onn had no doubt that the child could wield it. 

"Authorization override. Authorized guests, Spoiler, Black Bat, Signal." 

"What the fuck?! How the fuck did they access the override?" Lantern Gardner appeared to be extremely shocked by the override. If J'onn hadn't seen Batgirl fiddling with her tablet moments before he'd be just as shocked no doubt.

The three people that stepped out of the zeta could not be more different. The first was a girl dressed head to toe in deep purple and black. She had a hood and half-face mask, but he could see the corners of her eyes tightly crinkled in what he was sure was a big smile. 

The second person was completely covered in black. She was silent and at first glance J'onn could tell she was _deadly_ , all of the Bats were dangerous but this one, this one was deadly. He had a feeling that she had read everyone in the room on her first sweeping glance and dubbed them all as non-threats.

The last of the three was probably the easiest Bat to read since the first partner was a child. That is to say, despite being in a full suit plus helmet, that their body language was the most open and least threatening one he'd ever seen from a Bat.

"Batman. 02." Batman exited the zeta with a click of his boots, long cape surrounding him like a personal shroud of darkness. Batman was the greatest mystery of them all. He had an 'all business' approach to everything League related and was unerringly stoic. His movements were always precise and meticulous, he held himself stiffly yet could disappear without a single sound in seconds and leave no trail.

After exiting the zeta he approached his partners as it powered down and appeared to have a wordless conversation with them all. How they did it, no one knew. With one look between themselves the Bats always seemed to know what the others were thinking. Flash was convinced they ran on a hive mind. When their 'conversation' was over the Bats split up. Nightwing led the others to their designated table while Batman joined himself and the other founders on stage. He gave them all curt nods of acknowledgement before standing quietly on the side. 

The Bats have arrived, may the Gods rest their souls.

+=+=+

 _Bored._ If there was ever a word to describe how Stephanie felt in that single moment, it was, _bored_ . She'd never felt so totally bored in her life, she swore it. Big B had 'introduced' them to the League as his newest partners; that went off without a hitch, everything from their entrance go down went perfectly as planned. However, the afterparty that she'd begged, bargained and basically sold her soul to get them to attend, was _not_ going the way she thought it would. 

For one thing, it was too formal. More like one of _Brucie's_ parties than anything. For another, though this she expected, _no one_ came to talk to them. A few brave juniors _tried_ don't get her wrong, but their seniors quickly pulled them back if they showed even an inkling of curiosity in the Bats' general direction. After the fifth time this happened she huffed in irritation as quietly as she could, which meant her entire family naturally heard her.

N and Hood came up to her with sickening grins in their eyes. She couldn't see them, especially Hood's, but she knew they were making fun of her.

"Whatsa matter, Blondie? Party not living up to yer expectations?" Hood drawled in his half upper, half lower Gothamite accent. He was bored too then. She huffed again.

"You could have _told me_ that these things were a snooze fest." It took everything in her to keep her accent under wraps, she was just _so bored!_

"Well, we did try." N laughed from her other side.

"You were just too stubborn to listen." BG said.

"That, plus you cashed in pretty much all of your favors for this one night." Hood drawled, accent once again under wraps. "So you better enjoy it."

"Ugh!" They all laughed at her pain, which caused a few of those nearby to tense and whip around to face them. A tense few minutes passed before everyone went back to their conversations. From across the room B caught their eyes and motioned for them to behave, _it's like the man doesn't know his own children, ha!_ She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt Red sidle up to her, she needed to get this bastard a damn bell, he was almost as quiet as BB and demon brat.

"If you want some fun, it looks like something's going on over there." As one they all turned to face the corner that Red had pointed out. There, they saw one of Green Arrow's sidekick- partners in a heated debate with Supergirl. Although none of the Bats had superpowers, they were all adept at lip reading, and it appeared that the partner in question, Artemis, was telling Supergirl off for… mistreating her cousin? Interesting. They could see Supergirl scoff at her and say, "That thing isn't my cousin!" 

"Oof. Wrong call." Hood said.

He was right. Artemis' face turned an unflattering shade of puce before she got in Supergirl's face and yelled something at her. They couldn't see from this angle, but BB signed that she said the words 'not' and 'thing' so there's that. Eventually, she grabbed the hand of a large boy on the side and dragged him to their corner. Completely ignoring the, no doubt, warnings from everyone she passed.

"Look," she said once she was in front of them, "I know everyone usually gives you guys a wide berth and everything, but this is the only way I could think to get them to leave us alone after, well that. So if we could just stick to you guys for the next, I don't know half an hour or whatever that'd be great." She then proceeded to do just that and stood silently off to the side with the guy, Superboy, or well one of them at any rate. 

"Holy shit. Did you just aggressively Veronica Sawyer us?" Spoiler asked after she'd gotten over her surprise.

"Ha! You know, ya kinda did." Superboy laughed as he addressed his friend(?).

Artemis blushed at being called out so blatantly. "Shut up." She said, "So what if I did?" She'd begun to laugh herself, which caused the Bats to start snickering along.

They'd attracted the attention of every leaguer in the room by then. Some still tried to pretend they weren't obviously staring, while others threw all pretense to the wind. The junior leaguers, seeing that their 'prickliest' teammates had sidled up to the Bats, decided to give it a try. This had mixed results. Several of them approached at once, trying to introduce themselves and get more information on the League's most secretive members. Many tried to flirt with them, they left the circle almost in tears, for various reasons depending on the Bat. Others tried to subtly and not so subtly get information out of them; identities, abilities, information on Gotham, anything. They left more terrified of the Bats than when they'd approached. 

Eventually, only a few were left. Before they could attempt conversation with the Bats however, Lantern Gardner began yelling and stomping towards them. The rest of the Leaguers and their partn- fuck it, if they were gonna act like whiny, little bitches she'd treat 'em like it- the founders and their _sidekicks_ followed Green Lantern as he made his way over to confront the 'Batkids'. 

"Now you listen here! I don't know how they do things in Gotham, but in the League we don't go around _threatening_ our allies! Now I wanna know what you think gives you the right-"

"Is there a problem here?" Batman asked, his deep, gravelly voice sounding much closer than seemed possible. Turning around the Leaguers found that he was indeed as close as he sounded; right behind their little group. They hadn't heard him approach. That was terrifying for two reasons, 1) Batman's boots had a distinct _thump-click_ cadence and yet 2) in a room full of metas and highly trained individuals, _no one_ had heard him approaching. In their shock no one registered the question, and when no one answered him Batman started walking through the crowd, which parted easily before him. As he moved, everyone noted that the _thump-click, thump-click_ that they usually associated with Batman were noticeably absent. In fact, he didn't make any noise at all. If they weren't able to sense him, they'd all just as well assume he really was some-some nightmare creature of vengeance and not a man.

"Green Lantern. I do not like repeating myself." The Batkids could hear the warning in his tone, clear as day. A pity that Lantern Gardner couldn't. 

He scoffed and attempted to get in Batman's face as he said, "You bet there's a problem. You wanna explain to me why your sidekicks thought it was a _grand_ idea to threaten the junior Leaguers? Huh?" Stephanie thought Guy Gardner either had calls of steel or no survival instincts, at all. Maybe a bit of both.

B's face twitched, to anyone else it was barely noticeable, to his children it meant he was annoyed and wanted answers. Maybe blood, but he never let them have that much fun. He turned to them and N gave a barely there shake of his head while she rolled her eyes and Demon Brat huffed. Again, to anyone else, this meant nothing; to them it was all the explanation needed. They could see the lines of exasperation in his stance as he turned to address their audience. _If the man wanted less stress he should stop adopting strays._

+=+=+

The entire exchange had taken only a few seconds, but Batman had gotten all the information he needed. Internally sighing he said, "What exactly were your _sidekicks_ doing before they claimed they were threatened?" Several Leaguers sputtered in indignation, but he didn't give them time to answer; he hated these gatherings enough as it was. "Because," he continued," I believe I made it very clear to each of you that I do not take kindly to attempts at getting information about myself, my children or my city. Especially if you try to harass my children to get it." The temperature in the room dropped several degrees as Batman looked over each and everyone of them. 

Several Leaguers tried to come up with something to say in their partner's defences but they all fumbled under Batman's unwavering glare. Eventually Superman stepped in between them and gestured for everyone to calm down. 

"Let's all calm down now-"

"Calm down?!" Supergirl shouted, "You want us to calm down? Kal, that pint sized brat called me slut!" She pointed at Robin when she was done. 

Robin scoffed in response. Frowning now, Superman turned to address him, but Batgirl cut him off. "Hold up. Imma have to cut you off right there. Robin never called Supergirl a slut, one. Two, while what he said wasn't much better, how exactly was he meant to react when some strange girl tried to drape herself over his brother, all while asking questions about classified information." 

"So what? The kid's never seen someone get flirted with before?" She sneered.

"I've seen flirting." Robin replied, "That, was desperation." He deadpanned. 

"You-"

"Alright, that's enough!" _Oh, Big Blue's at the end of his rope._ Stephanie thought gleefully. Superman turned to address the junior Leaguers. "Did you, or did you not, ask Batman's partners questions they did not want to answer? And did you continue asking after at least one of them shut it down?" 

There were many mumbled and half formed responses to his questions, but ultimately no one answered him and they just hung their heads. All but one. 

Lagoon Boy looked straight ahead and scoffed. "So what if we did?" He asked. "What's it matter? We know practically nothing about them, but I bet they know everything there is to know about all of us. How can we trust them if they keep to themselves and never deign to join us mere _mortals_?" Several of the juniors were nodding along by now, some even vocally expressed their agreement; those that had avoided asking the Bats any restricted questions shook their heads at their colleagues and friends' behavior. 

Before an argument or riot could break out a gravelly, robotic voice was heard over the din. "You don't." Red Hood said.

"Excuse me?" Green Arrow said.

"I said, you don't. Trust us, that is. We're here because the League was uncertain about the situation in Gotham, had next to zero information on anything going on in the city and wanted proof that the city was being taken care of. To prevent you losers from entering a city _w_ ay outside your realm of comfort and understanding, and to keep you out of our business we agreed to join your little club. We aren't here to make friends. If that means you don't trust us, well fine. But we're here purely for business. You get what you want from us, and vice versa."

No one knew what to say in response to that. It was true. Though Batman was one of the founders, it was purely to keep outsiders away from Gotham. From the news and reports they get, he'd done them a favor. What the League didn't know was that the Bats also used the League to keep tabs on any potential threats. They didn't need to know that they had contingencies in place for them, after all, as long as no one got compromised, they wouldn't need to use them. 

+=+=+

There was nothing more that could be said in response to Red Hood's statement. The senior Leaguers apologized on behalf of their juniors and everyone returned to their corners. Eventually Artemis and Superboy returned with a few of the others from before. 

A tall, dark skinned boy stepped forward and dipped into a bow, shocking all the Batkids except for Black Bat and Robin. 

"I would like to apologize for La'gaan's behavior." He said as he came out of his bow. "It is no excuse, but he has always been rather impulsive-" an auburn haired speedster laughed behind him,"-and often allows his emotions to get the best of him. I assure you he shall be dealt with accordingly."

"Thank you, Aqualad." Nightwing said. The rest of them nodded in acknowledgement.

"Kal, you sticking around?" Artemis asked. Aqualad paused and thought it over before shaking his head.

"It might be best for me to stick close to the juniors for now. I feel they will need a calming presence." He said. "Perhaps another time." With a final bow he separated from their little group. After that the others came forward and Artemis and Superboy introduced them. They met Impulse, Kid Flash (who was considering a name change soon), the new Blue Beetle and Red Arrow. According to Impulse, the younger Superboy had wanted to join them but was being 'closely guarded' by his cousin. 

They all found something in common with one or two of the newcomers and Stephanie was glad that the _entire_ night hadn't been a major waste. When their group had split up later that night they all promised to keep in contact (via League contact means of course) and Stephanie felt as though this was the beginning of something chaotically beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I don't know how many chapter's this will have


End file.
